Thursday, February 17, 2011

okay so i guess it has to be said because in the past month a few of my pictures have been taken off my site and used to promote other sites.

so here we go.

i totally love when others find me and my creations through another site due to the fact that they linked to me and or shared a picture of one of my creations with credit back to the place they found it. thank you! yes this wonderful world of blogging and cyberspace is amazing and a wonderful tool to find help in whatever you are looking to find to do. we live in a awfully fast paced cyber world, where with a click of a mouse and a couple pushes of the keyboard, or heck with a few touches on your touch screen, you can buy, sell, or learn ANYTHING.what an amazing time to be a part of.

but with all the fast paced and all the free internet information sharing there comes the overstepping of boundaries, calling something yours when it's not.

i'm mainly talking about finding a picture on the internet and then taking it, posting it, and not giving credit as to where you got it from. or like in the picture featured above, in BIDRACK'S site's case. (never even heard of them but apparently i bought my OWN PURSE i made a pattern for from them) and seriously? stephania? do i look like a stephania? but even better did you notice the blond in the upper left hand corner holding a hideous green wallet. yeah also my picture except bidrack changed the chocolate bar dana was holding and photoshoped their product in.**edited: since dana and i have linked to bidrack's site and outed them they've all of a sudden deleted and changed their page to no longer claim our winnings. hmmm, interesting. i suggest you stay away from that site because i've also googled them and there's a lot red flags there.

this has not been the first time that this has happened to me. nor will it probably be the last. heck most likely it's happened to a lot of you too?

okay so lets talk a little bit about what's cool to do and what's not so cool to do:

it's totally cool to use my pictures when you are:*promoting something you saw on my site and you link my picture back to said item or post. dude, thanks so much for doing so!*you have asked permission from me to use my picture for something other than promoting my site. (hey just ask! i've said yes in the past, try me and we'll talk about it!)*when using pinterest, tumbler, stumble upon, or any other awesome link site. i love those too! but please give credit to where you got it.

it is so NOT cool:*when you take one of my pictures and use it for your online shop profile and or for a description of your product. this includes facebook, etsy, blogger, and where ever else you can put a profile picture.

*when you have not asked permission or do not give any credit of the picture that is not taken with your own personal camera. i know it happens all the time and i know sometimes we download pictures onto our computers for inspiration or eye candy...if you forgot where the source of the picture is from...say so. i've done that once even on this blog. but don't let people assume its your picture by not even acknowledging that it's not yours.

also what's NOT cool: because it happens so often it's not even funny.

i understand a lot of us create things that are similar. heck a lot of us come up with the same idea around the same time. i get it, that's how fads, styles, and well basically EVERYTHING in life works, but...and this is a BIG BUT:

*taking a tutorial (free or a bought pattern) setting up and taking pictures with your OWN camera with your OWN material BUT showing the SAME steps and changing the wording slightly(or even using the same wording), does not make it your OWN, that's still considered crossing the line in my eyes. (and yes i know, i don't jump to conclusions when someone has done a tutorial with the same steps, and just assume they have taken it from somewhere, remember my disclaimer of we come up with the same stuff around the same time, i'm the first person to tell you: been happening since the beginning of time.)

a lot of us get the same end result using different methods...this is totally awesome because we learn new ways and create shortcuts or even sometimes creating something entirely new...this is how i think we keep pushing boundaries and keep revolutionizing ideas.

and then of course common sense and courtesy:

*never EVER copy and paste someone else's tutorials onto your site even if you give credit to them. it's still taken WITHOUT my consent. i will give consent if asked, well, if i see fit. otherwise it's a real big fat no no, and really all kinds of lame.

now.on a nicer note, thanks to all who have either emailed me or somehow contacted me to let me know when these things happen. i try to keep a calm and open mind to things, and when a site is completely in the wrong, like bidrack, i will contact and try to figure something out. thus far i've only had good experiences. and that makes me feel at ease.

another good note, i finished another fun project due to make it's debut next week, hopefully monday!okay that is all.we'll talk soon

Kind of creepy for someone to put your face on their ads? My pet peeve...although I only know for sure of 1 particular person but I'm sure there are others out there. I almost bought a bib pattern from a certain Etsy shop. A few days later I saw the same pattern (plus a few others she was/is still selling) from McCalls. And since I've noticed other patterns in her shop are the same as you can buy in the store. Normally I'm all for buying from small business owners rather than big companies but not when it comes to stealing! It kind of makes me sick that she's had 7800 sales from her shop and I've seen her featured on a blog or 2.

you, know it's just common courtesy.how come people don't realize that?you totally could be that name up there...all exotic!:Di can't remember if i told you this because i was on drugs but me and dave watched you on tv from the hospital!we were both so nervous for you and were rooting you on! you did awesome little chick...i also noticed you lose your smile and got really nervous for you but you kept it going and did awesome! i felt like a proud big sister.:D

Dear Stephania,I am so totally jealous of that bag- you got a great deal on it too! I mean, 95% off! WOW. I hope you got the Blahniks that you were looking for! I can't wait to go on bidjunk and find a lot of unreal deals!Your friend, Daphne (I always wanted a cool name when I was a kid, so I'm going Daphne!)

oh.my.goodness. My heart rate was increasing exponentially reading your bidrack experience. I was ready to join up with you and crush them, we could raise up an army and storm the castle - so glad you mentioned it has been resolved. :-) Sorry that has happened though, really stinks.

wow. I think it's crazy what people do out there. I was looking at my blogger stats the other day and found my page getting a lot of traffic from some turkish website. It was a little shady... but at least they left a link... weird. It still made me feel scummy to know someone was posting about my stuff.

We are in the same boat right now...we stumbled across a cookbook being sold that is using our picture as THE COVER! No consent what-so-ever! What a fun adventure learning about copy right law is! Good luck :)

We had a friend run into this problem, when she purchased some crib bedding off of etsy and when she got it, it looked like someone puked up fabric. Turns out the shop owner needed some cash, never sewed a day in her life before, and just ripped off another etsy shop's pictures as her work to get buyers. It was pretty dang awful, but the friend ended up getting her money back- in installments. Meh.

That is so, so unfortunate. I've seen it happen here and there around the blogosphere, and around etsy, too. Such a shame--why can't people do their own work, or ask for permission? Seems like something we learned in kindergarten, no?

One problem I have is that people don't read my blog and just look at the pretty pictures. A friend of mine received several fat quarters for Christmas and didn't know what to do with them, so I posted links to tutorials on my blog (clearly labelling them "click on image for link"). I could not believe how many of my friends who perused my site congratulated me on items which I hadn't made! Do you put a watermark on your images, maybe it could be an option?

Katy that's not a problem, I really hope it came across in this post that in no way shape or form am I saying whenever you post a picture are you guilty of anything. I was just pointing out in bidracks photo, this is most def in the wrong. I think this post may of come out a little more harsh than intended, so I'm sorry if it did, I just neede to explain my feelings on it. Also on the watermark situation, I will be doing one, but the picture that I had taken the cut out my words anyways. Frustrating I tell you.

You are not alone. Some time back, a blogger posting her beautiful and pictures baby pictures was dealing with stolen pictures. She finally had to stop posting her pictures because she wanted to protect her baby; but, she still got a book out of her efforts...

there is nothing that bugs me more than when i see my photographs (taking for my photo business or even my craft blog) put on someone elses blog without credit. thank you for still sharing all of your awesome ideas and your creativity with us- i love your blog!!

Holy stinking cow Vanessa.That is terrible!!! And very scary. If pictures of sewing projects are being snatched, good grief, what about our other personal photos. I really try to keep it simple and not to many of family, etc, just because I want to protect them (and me too).I have to laugh about linking back to your blog, because I link back so much people must think I am stalking you! ha ha ha! I am just a gigantic fan and try the neat things you share with us (if I am not too much of a chicken).Man alive! I have never come across anything like this, and if I do, I will most definitely contact who is being taken from.I hope it all works out and your name as well as little company regains all the credit for your super duper creativity!! :o)hugs,Trish

Two years ago I did a tutorial for www.sewmamasew.com. Amazingly 6 months later I was flipping through a sewing mag at acmoore and THERE IT WAS...same everything. I was really discouraged for a while over it.

This is definitely NOT cool thanks or letting us know I am going to post this on http://pennyauctionwatch.com feel free to join the forum http://pennyauctionwatch.com/forum to learn more about penny auctions!

gross V - sorry this is such a buzz kill on your day! Never heard of Bidrack before but certainly wouldn't ever use them in the future! Thanks for sharing so much of yourself & your creativity - it's what keeps legitimate people coming back every day to check what's new!

to answer colleen who had the question of if it's okay to link up to tutorials: OF COURSE! that's how craft bloggers get traffic, YES PLEASE do link us up, use our pictures in your post as well! we appreciate the exposure we need the exposure! that is most definitely the way blogging should work and we appreciate it. :)

What a coincidence. This evening, my hubby just showed me a post on a website for off-road Toyota fans. A guy was killing time in Old Navy yesterday, browsing through some cool-looking shirts in the toddler boys' section. It was then that he spotted a shirt that had a sketch-type drawing of his OWN vehicle on the front. A couple years ago, he'd given permission to the Toyota Landcruisers Association to feature, on their site, a photo he had taken of his own vehicle. Today, after he posted news of his "discovery" on the Toyota fan site, another guy super imposed the graphics (from the t-shirt) over the original photo, which proved the photo was most definitely used for the t-shirt image. You can see the shirt here: http://oldnavy.gap.com/browse/product.do?cid=49046&vid=1&pid=810374&scid=810374022

Now it makes me wonder how many other products contain "stolen" images....

I would be SO infuriated if I were you and I commend you on your ability to "keep your cool" while blogging about it!

As a graduate student, giving credit where credit is due has been so repeatedly ingrained into my brain that it's become a part of who I am and I can't even fathom having the audacity to deliberately copy the work of someone else! Ugh!

On a funny side-note... I was promoting your hounds tooth quilt pattern by saying that loved it TONS and if you ever came out with an argyle quilt pattern I would swoon all over it and make them for the masses... and then, low and behold, my fantasies came true when I picked up my newest copy of Quilts and More... and magically there was an argyle quilt! Holla!! It totally rocks my argyle socks.

Serious rockin'.

So. Thank you so much for your awesomeness. I appreciate it oodles. and gobs too.

NEVER post a full tutorial without permission! The purpose of featuring or sharing a tutorial should lure the readers to the original creator...they deserve the traffic and full credit for all of the hard work they put into it...they own it!!

Thanks for this post. I had an experience where a big craft blog commented and mentioned they were going to feature my tutorial, which of course I was happy about. Then a couple of months later I found that tutorial posted in full on that blog and was pretty disappointed. There was a tiny link to my original blog at the very end of the post. The worst part is that the other blogger gave me a guilt trip when I very nicely asked her to only post a few pictures and link to the original tutorial.

Luckily, I have not had this happen with my blog, so far. I do watermark all the pics. I have had it happen on Facebook though, a so called friend of mine posted my photos as her own and I only found out over a year later when she posted another photo to that same album and I looked through it. I pointed it out to her, asking for an explanation and she removed some, so I spoke to her again. She then removed the others. She then removed me as a friend on there!